A boy named Francisco Erwin Galicia was travelling with his younger brother and others from the border town of Edinburg, Texas, to Ranger College for a soccer scouting event on June 27, 2019.
The 18-year-old American citizen was stopped at a Customs and Border Protection checkpoint, Francisco provided Border Patrol officers with his Texas ID card and also showed his social security card and birth certificate.
According to AP, after showing all the proofs, he was still taken into custody and spent weeks in a CBP detention center before being moved over the weekend to an Immigration and Customs Enforcement facility, he was finally allowed to contact his family and was released from ICE custody.
“I’m so thankful Francisco is free and he can sleep at home tonight and see his mom,” his attorney Claudia Galan told the AP.
Galan provided Francisco’s copy of the birth certificate to immigration authorities which proved that he was born in a Dallas hospital on December 2000. But authorities were skeptical about it as they pointed out a conflicting document that claimed Galicia was born in Mexico.
When Francisco’s was a child his mother was not living in the US legally and she took out tourist visa for her son listed his birthplace as Mexico, so her son could visit relatives crossing the border, reported AP.
After being kept for 26 days in custody authorities released Francisco on after agreeing that documents are valid.
“Situations including conflicting reports from the individual and multiple birth certificates can, and should, take more time to verify,” the statement said.
“While we continue to research the facts of the situation, the individual has been released from ICE custody. Both CBP and ICE are committed to the fair treatment of migrants in our custody and continue to take appropriate steps to verify all facts of this situation.
”